The Doctor's Wife
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- Publication date
- 2012-04-01
- Usage
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Topics
- LibriVox, audio book, fiction, historical-fiction, literature, romance
- Language
- English
- Item Size
- 2.5G
LibriVox recording of The Doctor's Wife, by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Read by Kirsten Wever.
This is one of the Victorian “Sensationist” Mary Elizabeth Braddon's many novels (best known among them: “Lady Audley’s Secret”). It is extremely well written, fluid, humorous and, in places, self-mocking: one of the main characters is a Sensation Author. The motifs of the-woman-with-a-secret, adultery, and death are classic “sensationist” material. Yet this is also a self-consciously serious work of literature, taking on various social themes of the day. Specifically, Braddon presents the psychological struggle and cognitive dissonance which are the inevitable plight of the married middle-class woman with a strong sense of self, who is essentially constrained to live the life of her husband. In this, it echoes Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary.”
The heroine, Isabel Sleaford, was driven early in her childhood to bury herself in, and develop her sense of self through, romantic novels and poetry. She is thus ill-adapted to the conventional, provincial structures and strictures laid upon her when she marries the very good and adoring, but also boring and unimaginative, Dr. George Gilbert. Isabel forms friendships with men (including her husband's best friend) who are more amenable to her romantic inclinations, and inevitably encounters social condemnation as a result. The book shows how life’s tragedies and the world’s cruel judgments shape Isabel, as she grows more mature, somewhat embittered, but also – true to her nature – beautifully resilient. (Summary by Kirsten Wever)
For further information, including links to online text, reader information, RSS feeds, CD cover or other formats (if available), please go to the LibriVox catalog page for this recording.
For more free audio books or to become a volunteer reader, visit LibriVox.org.
Download M4B 01-12 (166MB)
Download M4B 13-25 (168MB)
Download M4B 26-38 (163MB)
This is one of the Victorian “Sensationist” Mary Elizabeth Braddon's many novels (best known among them: “Lady Audley’s Secret”). It is extremely well written, fluid, humorous and, in places, self-mocking: one of the main characters is a Sensation Author. The motifs of the-woman-with-a-secret, adultery, and death are classic “sensationist” material. Yet this is also a self-consciously serious work of literature, taking on various social themes of the day. Specifically, Braddon presents the psychological struggle and cognitive dissonance which are the inevitable plight of the married middle-class woman with a strong sense of self, who is essentially constrained to live the life of her husband. In this, it echoes Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary.”
The heroine, Isabel Sleaford, was driven early in her childhood to bury herself in, and develop her sense of self through, romantic novels and poetry. She is thus ill-adapted to the conventional, provincial structures and strictures laid upon her when she marries the very good and adoring, but also boring and unimaginative, Dr. George Gilbert. Isabel forms friendships with men (including her husband's best friend) who are more amenable to her romantic inclinations, and inevitably encounters social condemnation as a result. The book shows how life’s tragedies and the world’s cruel judgments shape Isabel, as she grows more mature, somewhat embittered, but also – true to her nature – beautifully resilient. (Summary by Kirsten Wever)
For further information, including links to online text, reader information, RSS feeds, CD cover or other formats (if available), please go to the LibriVox catalog page for this recording.
For more free audio books or to become a volunteer reader, visit LibriVox.org.
Download M4B 01-12 (166MB)
Download M4B 13-25 (168MB)
Download M4B 26-38 (163MB)
- Addeddate
- 2012-04-01 20:36:16
- Boxid
- OL100020312
- Call number
- 6202
- External-identifier
-
urn:storj:bucket:jvrrslrv7u4ubxymktudgzt3hnpq:doctors_wife_1204_librivox
- External_metadata_update
- 2019-04-04T20:47:19Z
- Identifier
- doctors_wife_1204_librivox
- Ocr
- tesseract 5.0.0-1-g862e
- Ocr_autonomous
- true
- Ocr_detected_lang
- en
- Ocr_detected_lang_conf
- 1.0000
- Ocr_detected_script
- Latin
- Ocr_detected_script_conf
- 1.0000
- Ocr_module_version
- 0.0.15
- Ocr_parameters
- -l eng+Latin
- Ppi
- 600
- Run time
- 17:59:51
- Taped by
- LibriVox
- Year
- 2012
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